Read "The Mystery of Crocksands" by Fred M. White online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
They skirted round the fringe of the frowning cliff's where the Atlantic swell beat incessantly until they were lost to sight under the headland that towered up the best part of a thousand feet over their heads, and feathered almost to the water's edge with the great forest trees. How they had planted themselves and flourished there on the precipitous slope with its thin soil was a mystery, but there they were, and their luxuriance concealed the fact that the climb through them was a rather hazardous undertaking, and that if one of those ancient steps gave way or a boulder shifted the adventurers might be dashed to pieces on the rocks below.
So far as Bly could see, there was no sign of a foothold anywhere, till presently Ellen pushed a mass of growth on one side and disclosed what at one time had evidently been a rough step hewn out of the cliff side.